Ken Newquist 
My gaming group’s preferred campaign setting is the World of Greyhawk. We adventured there for years with our Blackrazor Guild campaign, but while we’ve walked (and been kicked off of) the streets of Greyhawk, battled the humanoid invaders of the Pomarj, and sailed the waters of the Vohoun Ocean, there’s plenty of Greyhawk we’ve haven’t seen. This is … Read more
An up-close look at one of Japan’s five Ryuseito swords, forged from meteorites: A look at the forging and subsequent history of these “comet swords”. One of the five blades is missing, which sounds like great fodder for one of my Weird Pulp campaign. Star Trek: Picard Timeline Updated and Explained: How Hugh, Data, and Seven of Nine … Read more
Scientists Agree: Coffee Naps Are Better Than Coffee or Naps Alone: Drink some coffee. Take a 20-minute nap. Wake up feeling more refreshed than ever. Bank Of Canada Urges ‘Star Trek’ Fans To Stop ‘Spocking’ Their Fivers: People keep transforming Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Canada’s seventh prime minister, into Star Trek’s Spock in honor of the late Leonard … Read more
The summer is racing along. Our June trip to Lake Champlain seems like it was a year ago. My second big vacation of the summer – a week in Maine with my extended family, then a week of scout camp with Neutronlad is over and work is looming large. Band camp, that annual ritual for … Read more
I’m looking for a good day pack. Ideally, it should be able to hold a camping weekend’s worth of clothes (e.g. t-shirts, shorts, underwear, socks) and have multiple compartments (a larger internal area for clothes and such, and at least one smaller, externally accessible area closed by a clasp or zipper. It needs to have … Read more
The most unique RPG on my shelf is the Amber Diceless Role-Playing Game. Released by the now-defunct Phage Press, the innovative RPG eschewed dice in favor of a mechanic that relied on a rock/paper/scissors contest of abilities augmented by situational modifiers. Based on Roger Zelazny’s Amber fantasy novels, allows players to take on the roles of sons and … Read more
The opening topic for #RPGaDay2019 is all about firsts. Rather than focus on a particular first, I decided to brainstorm a big list of them. First RPG: Dungeons & Dragons (Basic Set, circa 1981). My mom bought it for me and my world was never the same. First RPG Module: Keep on the Borderlands. I had … Read more
RPG a Day is an annual celebration of role-playing games in which bloggers, podcasters, vidcasts, and streams come together to talk about the hobby. Nuketown participated in 2017 and 2018. With 2019, they’ve changed the format up a bit. Instead of single sentence prompts for each day, they’ve gone with a single word. This Nuketown page serves … Read more
My third Amazon Kindle Paperwhite e-reader arrived just in time for my June vacation. The 10th generation Kindle’s boasts two notable improvements: it’s waterproof and it integrates with Audible audiobooks. I greatly enjoyed my Kindles … right until screen damage ended their digital lives. I’m not exactly sure how it happened (I suspect some combination … Read more
My lunchtime Dragon Heist campaign is powered by Roll20, not because we’re playing remotely, but because we need a virtual tabletop to maintain state between sessions. With only an hour to play each week, we didn’t want to spend time setting up and tearing down the battle map. I purchased the Dragon Heist module for the system, giving me ready access … Read more